A place for me to speak-out. A chance for my soul to seek...
' Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue, the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet;
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams '
- William Butler Yeats

A few days ago, I had gone to this boring place called Atlanta to participate in a conference, where people from offices all over the world attended. The seating arrangement led to me getting seated next to a Belgian guy at dinner. I don't, well I never discuss Tintin with anybody. There is a fear that all the years of Tintin obsession might channel into that conversation and I'd appear maudlin. However, this fellow was the first Belgian I ever met. The prospect of a Tintin conversation loomed large. I'd be investigated for a criminal misconduct if I didn't bring up the subject. Not surprisingly, he happened to be a huge Tintin fan. He was completely surprised Indians knew Tintin. The next half-hour we discussed Tintin like the way two teenagers would discuss Britney. The rest of the people in the dinner table had no clue about Tintin. 30 minutes well spent.

Some people like to be wished on the Birthdays and Wedding days. They like to be King/Queen for a day. Feel special. When people are growing-up they realize that such expectation usually leads to angst. Unless one is an actor who celebrates 5 birthdays/year or a politician, one doesn't get wished by tons of people. So they either stop expecting wishes or try and solve the problem.

The people who try and solve the problem, solve it by going on a wishing spree. They wish all their friends, relatives, and host of unknown people on wedding/birth day kind of occasions. These are the people who diligently collect wedding/birth day information from all arbit people they meet and wish them promptly. They are best at remembering occasions of "other people". This category of people get disappointed and hurt the most when all of the population they so diligently wish every year, don't ever wish back.

What they don't realize is that - in reality - when they call and wish this arbit person, the arbit person does not feel grateful and does not immediately make it a point to do the return-wish next year onwards. The arbitrary person, who is still young and unaware of the ways of life, usually gets filled up with disproportionate sense of self-importance. Arbit person feels that he is being wished because he is important and special and that his birthday wisher is not important and not special. As a result, the Arbit person does not see a need in doing the return-wish routine for some one lower in the hierarchy. That is until Arbit person suddenly realizes that his wishing population has dramatically dwindled. The arbit person then dons the role of the manical wisher and wishes tons of people to try and regain his wishing population until he feels disproportionately self-important again. And the cycle continues.

Try this cool hacking procedure using Bluetooth.Once connected to a another phone via bluetooth you can:- read his messages- read his contacts- change profile- play his ringtone even if phone is on silent- play his songs(in his phone)- restart the phone- switch off the phone- restore factory settings- change ringing volume- And here comes the bestCall from his phone” it includes all call functions like holdNote:1.) When connecting devices use a code 00002.) At start of programm on smartphones do not forget to turn on bluetooth before start ofthe applicationTo Download, click this link

There are signs of foreign firms increasing their presence in an increasingly concentrated information technology sector.

MOHAMMED YOUSUF

The sprawling Cyberabad in the Andhra Pradesh capital offers high-end infrastructure for the I.T. industry. With the U.S. remaining India’s principal market, the growth slowdown in that country together with the long-run depreciation of the dollar has begun to tell on export performance.

TIMES are hard for the world economy, particularly the United States’ economy. This should make the period difficult for any industry that depends on global markets, especially the U.S. market, for much of its demand.

This, unfortunately, is true of India’s information technology (I.T.) industry, dominated by exports of software and IT-enabled services (ITeS). Yet there are signs of cautious optimism among some industry insiders and observers based on the premise that the cost-cutting encouraged by slow global and U.S. growth will increase outsourcing to low-cost locations such as India, which would be good for growth even if not necessarily for margins.

It is too early to empirically confirm this speculation, but the evidence permits some initial judgments. In July every year, Dataquest releases its data on the performance of the top 200 I.T. firms in India the previous financial year. The information, unlike that of NASSCOM, covers the whole of the I.T. sector, including hardware, software, software services and ITeS. It also provides detailed information on the top 20 firms in the composite industry.

This data set, especially more information on the ways in which data are collated in the case of firms whose performance indicators and financial accounts are not easily available in the public domain, leaves much to be desired. But with almost all the data on the Indian I.T. industry being collated by private organisations such as NASSCOM, MAIT, Dataquest and IDC India, this information, which covers both the hardware and software segments, has been an important basis for analysing industry trends in the country.

As yet, we have access only to the first round of data released by Dataquest (July 15), focussing on the top 20 firms in the industry, in the export sector and in the domestic market. The information on the top 20 is an adequate basis for analysing industry trends, not only because they account for an overwhelming share of the revenues of the top 200 (64 per cent in 2007-08) but also because these are the most dynamic firms and have remained industry leaders for a long time. The top 20 list includes industry veterans such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), WIPRO and Infosys, which epitomise India’s I.T. success.

On the surface, there is a sameness about the trends the data on the top 20 reveal. The top firms in the industry continue to grow at a scorching pace, with the trend rate of growth until 2007-08 amounting to 34 per cent per annum whether we take 1991-92 or 2001-02 as the base year to make our calculations. Services firms dominate the industry in terms of number and revenues, with 95 of the top 200 companies engaged in services delivery and another 20 in the production and sale of software products. And export revenues still constitute the mainstay of the industry, with the revenues of the top 20 exporters (at Rs.1,02,451 crore) far exceeding those of the top 20 revenue earners in the domestic market (Rs.74,843 crore).

These perennial positives notwithstanding, there is some cause for caution. With the U.S. remaining India’s principal market, the growth slowdown in that country together with the long-run depreciation of the dollar (despite fluctuations) has begun to tell on export performance. The top 20 exporters from the industry recorded a growth in export revenues of 30 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 45 per cent in the previous year.

Since the growth of revenues of the top 20 firms catering to the domestic market was also slightly lower at 27 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 31 per cent in the previous year, the performance of the top 20 firms in the industry was disappointing. Top 20 revenues rose by just 23 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 42 per cent in 2006-07, pointing to the beginnings of a slowdown that could last for a long time. This could be the first sign that the software and ITeS boom is losing momentum.

This slowdown has been concealed by two factors. First, there have been individual companies that have recorded remarkably high rates of growth of revenues, albeit from small bases in the case of some. Thus, 13 of the top 200 companies covered by Dataquest registered triple-digit growth rates in 2007-08. Second, there have been a few companies that managed to expand their net revenues significantly in the financial year gone by. These trends have conveyed the impression that despite being dependent on the U.S. market, the Indian industry is decoupled from a growth slowdown in the U.S. market because the deceleration in growth is more than neutralised by enhanced outsourcing by firms in a recessionary environment.

Concentration of revenuesA. ROY CHOWDHURY

Inside a software company at Salt Lake, Sector-V, Kolkata’s I.T. corridor. Recent evidence shows that as the I.T. industy grows to maturity, the features that made it unique are losing their significance.

The slowdown in growth is not the only new, even if disconcerting, aspect of the figures for the last financial year. The numbers released thus far by Dataquest point to a consolidation of certain trends in the industry that have some troubling long-term implications. The first of these trends is a tendency towards increased concentration of revenues generated by firms in the industry. The top 200 firms account for an overwhelming share of the industry.

In 2005-06, for example, the revenues of the top 200 firms were placed at about 85 per cent of the total industry revenues. What is noticeable is the growing concentration within the top 200 segment. If we take the group of firms constituting the top 200, the top 20 firms (or 10 per cent of the number) accounted for 63 per cent of the revenues of the top 200. The next 30 (15 per cent) accounted for a near proportional 17 per cent of the revenues. And the remaining 150 (or 75 per cent in numerical terms) contributed just 20 per cent of the revenues.

Consolidation and concentration are part of the industry’s maturity. Underlying this concentration is a change in the nature of the firms that constitute the top 20 in the industry as a whole. Increasingly, firms with foreign parents populate the top 20 league tables. While 67 of the top 200 firms are foreign companies, 13 of the top 20 are known international companies. This is indeed a relatively new tendency. The number was as low as three out of the top 20 ten years ago and seven at the beginning of this decade.

What is interesting to note is the differential distribution of foreign companies among the top exporters and top suppliers to the domestic market. While 12 of the top 20 exporters of I.T. products and services from India are Indian firms, only four of the top 20 revenue earners in the domestic market are Indian. It has been known that foreign companies have been displacing Indian firms as major exporters, especially with the growth of the captive outsourcing facilities of foreign firms in the country. But this process has not yet displaced Indian companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam, service providers that remain the top exporters.

The situation is different in the domestic market. Over the past two decades, an increasingly liberal hardware and software import regime and a liberal policy with regard to foreign presence in the domestic hardware and software market has substantially increased the foreign share in these markets. This did not matter when the size of the domestic market was small in both absolute terms and relative to export revenues. However, as the diffusion in the use of I.T. increases, this unusual distribution of target markets between foreign and Indian firms can become significant.

What is noteworthy is that as the use of I.T. in business and in government increases rapidly, with a limited effort to shift away from proprietary to open source software, the presence of international software product suppliers in the Indian market is increasing rapidly. At a time when the diffusion in the use of I.T. in the country is increasing rapidly, foreign firms have displaced domestic firms in the domestic market at a much faster rate.

At first this was predominantly in the hardware segments where a liberalised import regime and substantially lowered tariffs helped international firms out-compete not just Indian brands but the huge assembled personal computer industry in the country. But, more recently, software presence is becoming important. For example, two global software majors – Microsoft and SAP – registered revenue growth of 29 and 104 per cent respectively in the domestic market in 2007-08.

The emerging picture is clear. Even while India’s scorching pace of I.T. services export growth slows, there are signs that foreign firms are increasing their presence in an increasingly concentrated I.T. sector. This has two implications.

First, I.T. export revenues are increasingly being garnered by foreign firms. But more importantly, as the domestic market for I.T. hardware and software grows, fuelled by increased government expenditure aimed at increasing I.T. use, foreign firms are coming to dominate the rapidly growing domestic market for both hardware and software. This would mean that slowing revenue and employment growth would be accompanied by a shift in the net foreign exchange earned by the I.T. sector, even leading, perhaps, to a net outflow sometime in the foreseeable future.

India’s software and ITeS industry was seen as different from much else of modern business in India because it was a high-growth sector driven by huge net foreign exchange earnings. It was pampered with tax concessions for this reason, and the concessions that were to end in 2009 have now been extended to 2010. But more recent evidence shows that as the industry grows to maturity, the features that made it unique are losing their significance.

Inflation still rising...yes every nation is going through rough patches nowadays as the oil prices keeps mounting by, yet the going has only got tougher for the UPA led govt. Having the advantage of two economic wizards one of which being the PM Himself and the other being theonly Finance Minister to file more budgets one cannot help but wonder whatz happening..

'Too many cooks only spoil the soup' they say which seems to be true in the case of the current UPA govt. Im not a supporterof BJP or any other party for that matter and not a fan of congress either but as a concious citizen could only worry aboutthe rising prices which ultimately affects the Majority of people esp. middle-class. Its getting more evident nowadays in everyforms of our lives, from transportation cost, food, groceries, products to everything. As they say this will have cascading effecton everything.

They say 3-5% is max. one can compromize for a healthy or rather wealthy govt. But a double digit inflation is only indicativeof the flawed economic policies esp. by a govt in its last days which can only leave a large chunk of deficit for the new govt. to be sworn-in. Though the UPA is still banking on its last budget offers like farm-loan waiver (which has run into lot of controversies and indeed is in toruble much like the other plans of congress).

The govt however is helpless as the FM cries every week pointing out the fuel hike, food hike, steel prices etc., they seriouslyaint seem to be concerned at all as most opposition parties are asking what is the need to push nuke deal alone why not u pplconcentrate on the ppl. ppl are dying day by day to cope-up with the rising prices.

Instead of providing course-correction actions releasing the inflation report well if i may sound like a politician curse me not im just expressing my raw anger as the situation seemed to me had crossedverges. i may sound illusioned but the fact remains that ppl are suffering for the futile plans and economic policies this govt. had framed so far. They only seemed to be reacting rather than being pro-active....

Further more they seem to be only doing what the previous govt. had done or planned to or left with just to earn accolades.from 4way roads, Nuke deal (which was planned earlier by BJP earlier as a low-profile deal), the ram sethu project, and more...

Common man like me can only hope the future would change and change for better..

I had grabbed every chance i had to watch the trust vote debate held last week following the crisis the congresshad to face in pursuing the Nuclear Deal. As advani had said clearly in the debate replying to pranab mukerjeescomments "IF you are in this state its because of yourself not because of us as pranab complaines. You wereonly trying to convince left to save the government and never at any point you considered conveying an all-partymeeting on a strategic Deal involving national security by putting it to risk for the years to come. Instead ofdoing so u convened a Left-UPA meeting only to convince left which apperantly you failed to"

I felt jolted as to why cant they atleast act like matured politicians unlike their state members. Should theycontine doing so by criticizing within themselves putting the nation under risk. Manmohan had surely took thischance to show the politician in all his acts which surprised evem the UPA ppl. Atleast the argument could've been decent without any personal attacks. which had been exchanged equally between both the sides amid the quarellingfuckers (i mean it) constantly shouting without a point...

However the Speaker deserves a salute in conducting the proceeding in a dignified manner even with the heart-pumpingMoney-for-vote scandal extravaganza.. many parties and even media complained of ethics and cried of pollutingthe assembly's ethnicity by showing money in the assembly... i donno why they can't show it in there.. if whatthey showed is true PM surely doesn't deserves right even to live.. Im sure both the sides would've been involved in the so called Horse trading but this is absurd... chaotic, pulling off such a thing could only worsenthe pm's state in the current state of affair of rising inflation, insecurity due to the recent bombings, scamsetc.,

appart from these i think most of the proceedings were a delight to watch... be it Omar's inspiring speech, advani'spiercing attach on PM (also personally), Pranab's conter attacks, rahuls maiden speech, CPMs new found flaws in the government, had pm maintained his dignity by avoiding personal counterattcks on Mr. Advani, it would've beenadvantage UPA. Now being won the trust vote by a undpredicted margin, it had only worsen its already shatteredimage in the country.

Now having won the trust vote, the UPA has got its last (Lost) opportunity to correct its course and sail completelyin the opposite direction atleast by completing its promises like loan waiver ( which is in troubled waters), Controlling inflation even at the cost of rising fuel prices, compromising the nuke-deal but the cons seemed to weigh morethan its earlier counter part, having only its supporters yet undependable allys viz sp, amarsingh, mulayam et al.they only enjoy the backup whereas they've got to restructure heavily to accomodate their new found ministers likeshibu soren, amarsingh and almost every individual seemed had wanted a piece of the cake, DMK drivng sethu deal as itspart and mulayam being won its ally back for the next election, it seems the going can only get tougher for the UPA

having depleted on every section of its boat the government seems to be on troubled waters what it can achieve in itslast lap is left to be seen as the whole nation watches including the to-be-pm...

I had grabbed every chance i had to watch the trust vote debate held last week following the crisis the congresshad to face in pursuing the Nuclear Deal. As advani had said clearly in the debate replying to pranab mukerjeescomments "IF you are in this state its because of yourself not because of us as pranab complaines. You wereonly trying to convince left to save the government and never at any point you considered conveying an all-partymeeting on a strategic Deal involving national security by putting it to risk for the years to come. Instead ofdoing so u convened a Left-UPA meeting only to convince left which apperantly you failed to"

I felt jolted as to why cant they atleast act like matured politicians unlike their state members. Should theycontine doing so by criticizing within themselves putting the nation under risk. Manmohan had surely took thischance to show the politician in all his acts which surprised evem the UPA ppl. Atleast the argument could've been decent without any personal attacks. which had been exchanged equally between both the sides amid the quarellingfuckers (i mean it) constantly shouting without a point...

However the Speaker deserves a salute in conducting the proceeding in a dignified manner even with the heart-pumpingMoney-for-vote scandal extravaganza.. many parties and even media complained of ethics and cried of pollutingthe assembly's ethnicity by showing money in the assembly... i donno why they can't show it in there.. if whatthey showed is true PM surely doesn't deserves right even to live.. Im sure both the sides would've been involved in the so called Horse trading but this is absurd... chaotic, pulling off such a thing could only worsenthe pm's state in the current state of affair of rising inflation, insecurity due to the recent bombings, scamsetc.,

appart from these i think most of the proceedings were a delight to watch... be it Omar's inspiring speech, advani'spiercing attach on PM (also personally), Pranab's conter attacks, rahuls maiden speech, CPMs new found flaws in the government, had pm maintained his dignity by avoiding personal counterattcks on Mr. Advani, it would've beenadvantage UPA. Now being won the trust vote by a undpredicted margin, it had only worsen its already shatteredimage in the country.

Now having won the trust vote, the UPA has got its last (Lost) opportunity to correct its course and sail completelyin the opposite direction atleast by completing its promises like loan waiver ( which is in troubled waters), Controlling inflation even at the cost of rising fuel prices, compromising the nuke-deal but the cons seemed to weigh morethan its earlier counter part, having only its supporters yet undependable allys viz sp, amarsingh, mulayam et al.they only enjoy the backup whereas they've got to restructure heavily to accomodate their new found ministers likeshibu soren, amarsingh and almost every individual seemed had wanted a piece of the cake, DMK drivng sethu deal as itspart and mulayam being won its ally back for the next election, it seems the going can only get tougher for the UPA

having depleted on every section of its boat the government seems to be on troubled waters what it can achieve in itslast lap is left to be seen as the whole nation watches including the to-be-pm...

well ever since my childhood i've always loved Kinetic the brand and i always think of it in par with Bajajas the brands that projects the true indian feeling. Somehow kinetic lost its track somewhere in the middlehad bajaj been devoid of pulsar it no doubt would've suffered a severe blow and conceded the whole 2wheeler market to the Giant Hero Honda... But somehow it had survived thanks to the bajaj brothers for restoring the pride now that it had scaled heights and is introducing newer products almost every quarter like Hero Honda who seems to be relaxing a bit, relinguishing its past glory. The new products are no more much attactive asif they only modify the body and chasis design by maintaining the same engine. Somethind which bajaj has started to follow lately...

However coming back to our Kinetic mania, i still remember the ads Kapil endorsed for Kinetic-Boss my favouritebike ad those time apart from Hamara Bajaj (Bharat Bala Fame) my hands are etching to divulge to write about bharat bala shomehow im refraining to reserve it for another post. Had kinetic been more agressive by not relyingon a single product (ofcourse the trend those times were release a design and start milking like TVS-50, Bajaj Chetak, M80, HH- CD100 and the likes) Kinetic surely had missed trains of opportunities which had been only discovered by HH and bajaj & TVS following them... Kinetic couldn't cope up with the rising market demands interms of new competitive products, exploring new demands, projecting their only brand Kinetic Honda...

And oflate when Motwani took charges in top gear i surely expected a lot of things to happen. To my surprise her efforts to bring itself up were hardly appreciative.. Meanwhile HH, Bajaj & TVS were exploring markets everynook and corner and entering into sport biking pioneered by Bajaj (the un-expected contender in that segment whichpreviously was only interested in home bikes) and Suzuki and Honda coming in with big bangs which ofcourse latermade suzuki to sell-off to TVS, and Honda though was turbulent at first somehow managed to hold its legs firm.

Kinetic couldn't help but wish if it could turn its fortune which ofcourse seemed to be answered by the Kinetic-Mahindramerger for 110 Cr. (20-80). Having created waves in the Automobiles (Cars segment) M&M is surely on a roll to ventrue itself in the Hot market... Though a bit late it has a lot to catch-up with. If only Kinetic lacks in the sting, M&M isthe right customer who can provide u that who inturn having outdone in its mother product got up and went on firing on all its cylinders to outsmart others, something which Kinetic needs now and should be gladly looking forward to...

now i cannot help but wish kinetic a greater fortune with M&M and hopefully we shall see the merger helps themcreate innovative products to mark the era of the future biking in a two-wheeler dependent country like ours.Maybe the could be even looking for alternative biking technologies like electric bike (which ofcours is environmentalfriendly would not attract probikers ) .

However having said all these what exactly the future has for Kinetic and its admirers is left to be seen.

PS: M&M has alo acquired PTL (Punjab tractors ltd.,) and if u are having the shares of PTL dont panic for you'llbe exchanged with three 10rs shares of PTL to one 10rs share of M&M. And now The Managing Director of the KineticMotors, Sulajja Firodia Motwani will now also be the non-Executive director in the new company. Lets hope her athleticefforts and passion towards adventure sports would guide her to a better fortune in their new endavours..

A self-explanatory title however would like to add that this is a excellant article from a neutral standpoint which gives us a factual repot on what has happened.... Over to frontline...

The vote is won, but the deals struck to achieve this will haunt the United Progressive Alliance for long.

Uncharacteristic aggression. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A FEW minutes after the announcement in the Lok Sabha on the evening of July 22 that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had won the vote of confidence, a few journalists caught up with External Affairs Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee in the corridors of the Parliament House. He said: “It is a legal, constitutional and political victory for the government. The vote of confidence has not only cleared the way for the government to go forward with the India-U.S. nuclear deal in a rightful manner but has also accorded political sanction to the agreement since a majority of legislators of the Indian Parliament have put their stamp of approval on it.”

When some journalists pointed out that the win seemed to suffer from a lack of moral authority on account of the unseemly cash-for-vote allegations, Mukherjee responded that an inquiry would be conducted into the allegations and promised appropriate action if anything amiss was found.

Obviously, the veteran politician was not as audacious as his new ally, Samajwadi Party (S.P.) general secretary Amar Singh, who addressed the moral authority question with characteristic nonchalance. He said there was no need to invoke a morality parameter in this matter as sections of the opposition also tried to induce ruling party members to go over to their side and defeat the government.

There is little doubt that the spate of issues relating to the trust vote – how it was won, the methods adopted to make parties and Members of Parliament fall in line, the legal, constitutional, political and moral validity of the entire process – would be debated in the public sphere for long.

Whatever the qualitative dimensions of this debate, it will not alter the fundamental facts of the trust vote, which the UPA won with 275 votes against the Opposition’s 256 in a House of 542 members (including the Speaker). There were 10 abstentions too.

But beyond these irrefutable statistics, the claims about the political and moral authority of the win have not found many takers. Interestingly, even a section of leaders and workers of the Congress, cutting across the different segments of the party hierarchy, agrees that the ruling dispensation has not made any real political gain out of the win.

How the vote went

The trust vote witnessed as many as 28 members defying the whip of their parties and siding with the opposite camp. Of them, 21 belonged to the Opposition parties and seven to the government side. Of the 21 Opposition members, 13 voted for the government and eight abstained or remained absent from the House. Of the 21, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) accounted for 13 members, including eight from the BJP, and the non-NDA opposition parties for the rest.

Of the seven from the ruling side who voted with the Opposition, six belonged to the S.P. and all of them had long-standing differences with the S.P. leadership. For the record, they claimed that their party had opposed the nuclear deal until the first week of June and that the shift in policy was not acceptable to them. Kuldeep Bishnoi, the Congress member who voted against the UPA, has had a running battle with the party leadership for long.

Leaders of the BJP, including the party’s prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani, indicated that the primary motivation for the crossing over was money. They added that they had deputed the three members – Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mohan Bhagora – who displayed wads of money in the Lok Sabha to expose the money-peddling politics.

The BJP leadership’s contention on the motivation for the crossing over stands to reason because none of those members has a significant political support base in his respective State. This is true of other members in the NDA as well as in the non-NDA parties. The crossing over of these members to the UPA does not make any value addition to the Congress or the UPA in concrete terms.

The dimensions of this deficiency becomes all the more striking in the context of the politics in the days immediately following the Left parties’ withdrawal of support to the UPA government. The Left formally withdrew support on July 9 and the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led S.P. formally announced its support to the UPA the same day. This was not a dramatic or unexpected development because the S.P. had been negotiating with sections of the Congress leadership and the two parties had worked out a broad agreement on a political deal nearly a month earlier. The Congress leadership’s calculation at that time was that with the S.P. on board they would be able to convince Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), H.D. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), a former member of the UPA in the present Lok Sabha, without much problem. In fact, several Congress leaders even claimed that these parties were natural allies of the Congress.

Calculation gone wrong

The main political players. (From left) Mulayam Singh Yadav of the S.P., Prakash Karat of the CPI(M), Mayawati of the BSP and L.K. Advani of the BJP.

When the process of wooing these parties began, the inducement for Ajit Singh came in the form of naming the Lucknow airport after his father, former Prime Minister Choudhary Charan Singh. The JD(S) had already started cooperating with the Congress in Karnataka after the drubbing that both parties received at the hands of the BJP in the Assembly elections held in May. The two parties had joined hands in a Rajya Sabha election last month. The negotiations with the JD(S) and the TRS apparently involved the entry of these parties into the Union Cabinet. In spite of all this, the three parties refused to come to the aid of the Congress.

The parties backtracked on the basis of discussions they had with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, who heads the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). She made the offer of a political alignment to the three parties, with the principal aim of fighting the next elections together. It was an offer that was hard to resist, given the significant Dalit base that the BSP has across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

The parties then decided to stay away from the Congress and be part of a third formation, which was to include the Left parties, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and a few other regional parties such as the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

As this development shows, the ruling Congress was not able to win over a new political ally in the run-up to the trust vote, while parties that were not in government at the Centre were able to come together as part of a combination that would fight elections and take up people’s issues together.

A day after the trust vote, the parties in the new grouping met in New Delhi and announced the launch of a mass campaign against the UPA government highlighting issues such as price rise and inflation, the anti-national nature of the India-U.S. nuclear deal and the negative fallout of the neoliberal economic policies.

According to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, the UPA leadership was indeed rattled by the failure to rope in parties such as the RLD, the JD(S) and the TRS, but it breathed a sigh of relief when the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), with its five members, took a firm position supporting the Manmohan Singh government.

By all indications, the operation to bring around the JMM involved some outrageous bargaining, which was qualitatively not much different from the exercises to win over Opposition MPs with individual allurements. The JMM is officially a constituent of the UPA in Jharkhand, but in the run-up to the trust vote its leadership negotiated simultaneously with the NDA and the UPA.

Both sides made big offers to JMM supremo Shibu Soren. While the NDA was ready to make him the Chief Minister of Jharkhand by engineering the collapse of the Madhu Koda-led government, the UPA had to give a firm commitment that it would induct Soren into the Union Cabinet at the earliest.

Soren was Coal Minister in the UPA government but was compelled to resign in November 2006 following his conviction in a murder case. The Jharkhand leader was acquitted in August 2007 but the UPA leadership apparently would not take him back into the Ministry on moral grounds. The Congress and UPA leadership had to abdicate that high moral position in order to rustle up the JMM votes for the July 22 trial of strength.

Far from isolated

PTI/COURTESY LOK SABHA TV BJP members show wads of money in the Lok Sabha on July 22 during the special session called to test the majority of the Manmohan Singh government. They alleged that the money was the first instalment of a bribe given to three members to get them to abstain during the confidence vote.

Another political calculation that went awry in the run-up to the trust vote was the one that visualised the isolation of the Left parties following their withdrawal of support to the government. Large sections of the Congress and its partners in the UPA and a number of political pundits and media analysts had held this view. The premise once again was that the RLD, the TRS and the JD(S) were natural allies of the Congress. This supposition took a beating when the Left regrouped successfully in the company of parties that included the BSP, the TDP, the RLD, the TRS and the JD(S).

However, the stand-off that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee over his resignation became a cause for embarrassment for the Left in general and the CPI(M) in particular. Somnath Chatterjee, defying directions of the CPI(M) leadership, held on to the Speaker’s post and even presided over the vote of confidence discussions. At the end of it all, the CPI(M) ended up expelling Chatterjee from the party while the Speaker continued in his constitutional position.

Already, there are suggestions within the Left that its association with the BSP could prove to be a much more cohesive alliance ideologically and politically than the one it had with the S.P. earlier. This assumption has its roots in the fact that the BSP’s core base is drawn from some of the most oppressed communities of the country. “This should help us develop a better working relationship with the BSP since the Left’s commitment to empowering the oppressed sections is unquestionable, although we have not been able to carry forward this struggle successfully in many North Indian States,” said a senior Left leader to Frontline.

While this optimism can be justified theoretically, it remains to be seen how the equation develops when the corruption cases against Mayawati come up for consideration in the courts and in public debates.

Beyond this, the Left leadership is certain that its anti-UPA campaign along with other parties will help it consolidate its position in Kerala and West Bengal, where the Left is in power. The Left leadership is sure that it can capitalise on the widespread anti-U.S. sentiment in Kerala. It also believes that its stand on the nuclear deal will help it win back at least a section of Muslims, who have moved away from the Left parties following the Nandigram episode in West Bengal.

New push for reforms

Even as the new non-BJP, non-Congress grouping is going ahead with its agitation plans, the UPA is also getting set to unleash new initiatives. In his reply to the debate on the trust motion, which he was not allowed to complete, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that over the past four years the Left parties had treated him as a slave and that he was not able to move forward on many of the policies and programmes. The reference must have been to reforms in sectors such as insurance and retail trade, which the Left opposed vehemently.

Manmohan Singh’s performance in Parliament was followed up by the leaders of industry, including organisations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), who demanded a further thrust to the economic reform process.

Such assertive demands had new qualitative dimensions in the background of allegations that many corporates bankrolled the moves to win over Opposition MPs. Indications from the Congress were that the government would go all out on the reform path in the near future.

Toppling game

V. SUDERSHANThe official residence of Chander Bhan Singh, BJP member from Madhya Pradesh who abstained during the confidence vote in Parliament, comes under attack from angry party supporters on July 24.

At the political level, highly placed Congress sources said, moves were afoot in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka to repeat the tactics employed in the trust vote so as to destabilise the governments there. The discussion vis-a-vis Uttar Pradesh among sections of the government and the Congress involved the filing of charge sheets against Mayawati, followed by the demand for Mayawati’s resignation by a section of Brahmin MLAs and the elevation of Satish Chandra Mishra, the number two leader in the BSP, to the top post.

This, sources in the Congress said, would divide Mayawati and Mishra and lead to the collapse of the government. Once that happened, an alternative would be rustled up by splitting the BSP’s MLAs. The responsibility for conceiving and implementing this project, the sources said, was with select leaders in the party and officers in the government who were once castigated as the “policemen” group by the S.P. leadership. That was between 2003 and 2007 when the S.P. government was sought to be destabilised by the Congress. Ironically, some S.P. leaders may also find a place in the group now.

In Karnataka, where the BJP enjoys a thin majority, “operation topple” is expected to be easier. H.T. Sangliana, the Lok Sabha member from Bangalore North who defected during the trust vote, could be a key player in this. Sangliana, a former Police Commissioner of Bangalore, is immensely popular among the MLAs in and around Bangalore and could well attract a handful of them to his side.

Informed sources said the Congress expected these operations to be completed before September so as to give the party leadership the political cushion to face the next Lok Sabha elections. It seems that the upbeat mood of the confidence vote is developing into political audaciousness.